Passat Continues To Ferment: SAIC Volkswagen Opens Test Analysis

It has been nearly half a month since the passing of the Passat test to get poor results, but the public opinion does not seem to give up the "fair" to the manufacturer.

In January 6th, there were still many posts on the vertical automotive media platform, which answered the embarrassing collision results of Passat. A car owner said that he had recently been driving "special attention", and has been paying attention to it. "Official reply" and other owners shouted directly to SAIC Volkswagen, "you owe us an account", and the owner expressed his wish to recall. After all, safety is not a trivial matter.

Besides the car owners, the poor performance of Passat in the crash test has also aroused discussion and controversy among other consumers and some auto industry. Suspected potential consumers said: "very much like Passat, the atmosphere is heavy, I plan to start years ago, I can see the collision test of China Insurance Research do not know what to do!"

Although many offline dealers and salesmen responded to the twenty-first Century economic report reporter's response: at present, Passat's terminal sales have not been significantly affected, and even because of the new business policy launched in the new year, the terminal price of Passat in 2019 January has also risen compared with December in 2019. However, judging from the reaction of the public opinion field, the passages of Passat and even the German public quality benchmark have been fading. A car operator pointed out that as a large B class car, Passat's exposure to A column deformation, intrusion of the front cabin wall, and air bag failure in the collision test were "intolerable".

SAIC is facing a thorny problem, and quality related public relations crisis has never been well dealt with. What the public is eager to know is whether Passat's performance in the crash test is so bad. Is it accidental or inevitable? This is a low matching version of the car tested. Will the same happen in other versions or even other models? Does Volkswagen have any plans to recall vehicles or implement other measures to reduce vehicle safety risks?

So far, SAIC Volkswagen and Volkswagen China have not made a public response to the matter. However, in twenty-first Century, the economic report reporter learned that the SAIC mass attaches great importance to the collision test, and has carried out relevant test analysis for the first time. According to the experience of the industry, vehicle enterprises may follow the technical improvement of related projects.

Passat test bottom

In December 23, 2019, China's insurance vehicle safety index (hereinafter referred to as "C-IASI") released the latest batch of vehicle test results. In the "positive 25% offset collision" project, Passat got the worst "P" level, ranking the bottom of the 41 models tested.

C-IASI is an index jointly formulated by China Insurance Industry Association, China Automotive Engineering Research Institute and China Automotive Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as "China Insurance Research"), which mainly serves the insurance companies and provides technical support for their claims settlement. Because of the non profit nature and the method of evaluation referred to the American Highway Safety Insurance Association (hereinafter referred to as "IIHS"), the evaluation result of C-IASI is believed to be highly reliable.

The "positive 25% offset collision" is a test of the IIHS standard, which simulates the relatively common small area collisions in fatal car accidents, and puts forward higher requirements for the body structure and quality. In fact, apart from Passat, BMW's 3 series of 318i, Nissan Sima and other models are not very good.

However, the test results of the above models were only in the "M (general)" file, and Passat only got the "P (bad)", ranking first in the list, and had a big gap with all other models. In addition, SAIC Volkswagen's other vehicle Tiguan L is ranked second.

From the collision test video released by C-IASI official website, we can see that in the moment of collision, the A column was broken directly, and the left front wheel penetrated into the cockpit, while the airbag in front of the driving seat opened quickly, and the dummy head on the driving seat hit the steering wheel.

A car engineer who has engaged in passive safety says that the rigidity of the body ensures that the cabin can not be invaded is the bottom line principle. Once the sheet metal is penetrated into the cabin, the air bag, seat belt and so on are all empty talk. "As a large B class car, Passat's tolerance in the 25% offset collision is intolerable." The engineer said.

Passat is one of the most popular intermediate cars in the Chinese market, and is also a key vehicle in SAIC Volkswagen. In 1-11 months of 2019, Passat sold 167 thousand and 500 cars in China, accounting for 9.4% of total sales of SAIC Volkswagen.

It should be noted that in a similar crash test, Passat had been highly evaluated before another test. In China's new vehicle evaluation code (hereinafter referred to as "C-NCAP") of China Automotive Research Center (hereinafter referred to as "China Automotive Research"), Passat gained full marks in side impact and frontal 40% crash tests.

It can be found that the way C-NCAP and C-IASI test are different. An automotive engineer in Shanghai told reporters that the 25% frontal impact used by C-IASI was smaller due to the smaller contact area and greater pressure on the part. And the collision zone was bypassed the front side rail, and the chances of injury were higher.

"You owe us one."

Obviously, C-IASI's testing standards are more stringent, but such tests are more practical. It is understood that the reason why IIHS joined this test is that in the real car accident cases in the United States, the number of positive small offset collisions accounted for 1/4.

However, it is also pointed out that the probability of positive 25% offset collisions in the Chinese market is relatively low, and the US standard should not be blindly adopted. "The road condition in the United States is different from that in China. The road width in the United States is fast, the road in China is narrow and the speed is slow, and the smoothness of roads in most parts of China is also better than that in the United States."

There is a lot of controversy about the safety issue. After the test results were exposed, the owner admitted that "five tastes are mixed". The test results are obvious, but what this means is that many people can not be sure. Some people say that the quality of the Volkswagen is getting worse and worse. Others say that the IIHS standard of the research institute is too harsh. Public opinion appealed to SAIC Volkswagen to give a statement.

However, SAIC and Volkswagen China have not yet responded publicly. People familiar with SAIC's analysis of the twenty-first Century economic report reporter, the company must measure the cost of public relations. At present, the Passat incident has not yet penetrated into the social news level.

However, the public concern is not only the poor performance of Passat car itself, but also its different performance in different markets. According to IIHS official website information, the US version of Passat scored the "G" score in the same crash test, which made many people call the Passat "special supply vehicle".

It needs to be pointed out that the new Passat is not the same as the US version of Passat. Previously, the Passat sold domestically in the US, and the latest Passat is a new car that is independently designed under the MQB platform. But because of its poor sales in the North American market, Passat used the original platform.

This has led to the MQB platform's unreliable conjecture, and the other vehicle L on the MQB platform has also performed poorly in the crash test, with the view that the new platform is flawed. However, the automotive engineers told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter that the platform is mainly about chassis, and the collision test is mostly the body design structure.

Other analysts also pointed out that there was a natural weakness in the side structure of Passat: the Liang Hen under the fender was short and had no connection with the longitudinal beam below the car head, nor could it be connected to the bumper, so there was no additional support. The American version of the A column is made of hot steel and "hard to eat" collision. Although the body is not obviously deformed, its force is also enormous.

In any case, the performance of domestic Passat is surprisingly poor. In fact, as a good sales model, Passat's safety performance is largely recognized by the market, but the reason for the diaphragm is why the domestic version of the safety standards did not keep up with the US version.

This is not only related to the market structure of automobile testing in China, but also to a certain extent, it exposes car companies' luck in vehicle testing and automobile production.

For a long time, China Automotive Research and C-NCAP is the most common vehicle crash safety performance evaluation system in China's automobile field, while Zhongbao research and C-IASI are relatively young and small. In 2018, they only released the test results to the society for the first time. At present, there are only more than 40 vehicle models released, and the influence of C-IASI is not large in the immature market of China's automobile and consumer culture.

This is also the reason why the Passat incident did not cause more widespread concern. However, with the rise of the new consumption power and the demand for safety performance, the "space" left by car companies will be smaller and smaller. For SAIC Volkswagen, we must take precautionary measures to improve the technical standards and safety performance of vehicles as soon as possible.